


Plant Life

by wrappedupinabook



Series: ChasePriceField - The OT3 [2]
Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: ChaseProceField, Complete, Cute, F/F, Fluff, Late night shopping adventures, Lisa the Plant, Maximum Victory - Freeform, OT3, Poly Cuddle Pile, Polyamory, chasefield, feel good, pricefield
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-11
Updated: 2016-04-11
Packaged: 2018-06-01 18:07:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6530473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wrappedupinabook/pseuds/wrappedupinabook
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Max asks Chloe and Victoria to look after her plants whilst she takes a trip out of town. What could possibly go wrong?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Plant Life

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TheStarrySkiesOfPalaven](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheStarrySkiesOfPalaven/gifts).



**Chloe Price**  
come 2 maxs dorm room asap!!!!

 **Victoria Chase**  
isnt she out of town for another day?

 **Chloe Price**  
yupp but u need 2 get here NOW

 **Victoria Chase**  
fine  
give me 10 minutes  
im in class

 **Chloe Price**  
what part of ASAP dont u get???

 **Victoria Chase**  
the kind where max isnt here and so im in no hurry  
ill be there when my class lets out

****Chloe Price**  
nerd**

****Victoria Chase**  
** drop out  
xxx

**…**

Victoria pushed the door to Max's room open without knocking, surprised to find the blinds closed and the light out. Despite the watery Oregon sunshine outside, she could hardly see a thing. Chloe was sat on the bed, seemingly oblivious to the gloom, her eyes were fixed on a point opposite her. She started at the sound of the door clicking shut, and whipped her head around to give Victoria a death stare.

'Took your time.' She said, her voice barely above a whisper, and Victoria rolled her eyes. Being herself prone to melodrama, she was excellent at calling it out.

'Look, this better be good, because I skipped out on after class Starbucks to come help with whatever mess you've got going on here.'

'Oh it's good all right. If by good you mean awful.'

'I usually do.' Victoria felt along the wall until she reached the bed and sat down next to Chloe, putting her hand over the other girl's. 'You know you can tell me pretty much anything right? As long as it's not, like, super gross.'

'Victoria, I've done something really bad.' The words took a moment to sink in.

'Shit! What?' Already, Victoria's mind was racing with possible scenarios.

Chloe sounded truly upset, it was rare for the two girls to be this open with each other. Their conversations were usually littered with snide comments, from Victoria, and open hostility, from Chloe, all mixed with a heavy dose of showing off and posturing in front of Max. The way Chloe's hands were twisting themselves into Max's bed sheets let Victoria know that this was a little heavier than she had been prepared for.

'I…' Chloe took a deep breath before continuing, 'I killed Lisa.'

'Wait,' Lisa, Lisa, the name was familiar somehow, 'Chloe, what exactly did you do?'

In response, Chloe crossed the room in two bounds and rolled the blind up, spinning on her heel and gesturing to the floor. It took a second for Victoria to realise what she was supposed to be looking at, and when she did her relief was quickly eclipsed by a surge irritation.

'Oh my God! A plant! A fucking plant!'

'Not just a plant.' Chloe sounded genuinely wounded. 'Lisa.

Victoria jumped to her feet, grabbed a pillow off the bed and began to hit Chloe around the head as she yelled, emphasising each word with the hard, feathery thwap of pillow hitting girlfriend's-girlfriend. 'I' thwap 'thought' thwap 'you' thwap 'had' thwap 'murdered' thwap 'someone!' thwap 'I' thwap 'was' thwap 'ready' thwap 'to' thwap 'help' thwap 'you' thwap 'hide' thwap 'the' thwap 'body!' thwap.

'Okay, okay, I'm sorry alright?' Chloe said, wrapping her arms around to Victoria to limit the range of her pillow attacks. 'I over reacted. Maybe. But Lisa is Max's absolute favourite. After me.'

'I'm going to ignore that.'

'And I killed her! Well. We killed her.'

'I beg your pardon?' Victoria tried her best to sound offended, but the pieces were starting to fall into place. 'I knew that it only needed to be watered every other day... so I figured that if you did it... then I wouldn't have to...'

'Yeah? And guess what I thought. '

Victoria wasn't one to readily admit guilt. 'Honestly, Max should never have asked us to look after it in the first place. She knows I'm busy, and you…' she looked Chloe up and down critically, 'you're unused to responsibility.'

'Shut up, Vic, I'm totally responsible.' Their eyes were both drawn to Lisa's sad, dirt brown leaves. 'Usually.'

'Hmm,' Victoria examined the plant more closely, rubbing a leaf between finger and thumb only to have it crumble into so much dust. 'Right now we need to focus on damage control. Max gets back from Seattle tomorrow and she can be a little… sentimental, so I'd rather not tell her about this.'

'Sentimental?'

'She keeps you around, anyway' she continued, cutting off the come back she could see forming in Chloe's mind, 'we need to turn this dead plant into a… into a not-dead plant.' She finished lamely.

'No shit Sherlock.'

'Well I don't see you coming up with any bright ideas.'

'Okay,' Chloe leant back on Max's desk, upsetting a pile of papers and dragging one heel on the floor, 'we get some of that fertiliser stuff, Miracle Grow,' she flashed Victoria a smile, 'I've seen that shit on late-night infomercials. It's ridonculous.'

'I think at this point we'd need an actual miracle.'

'Well, have you got a better plan?'

Victoria tapped a finger against her bottom lip thoughtfully. 'We don't really need this plant to be alive, do we? We just need… a plant.'

…

They took Chloe's truck. There'd been an argument over it, of course, Victoria objecting on the grounds that it was a death trap, poorly disguised as a beige box of rust, and that Chloe drove like she had a vendetta against every other vehicle, pedestrian or woodland creature they encountered. All it took was Chloe pointing out the possibility of earth spilling across Victoria's cream leather interior and the matter was settled.

'Do we have to listen to this noise?' Victoria asked, shortly, as the crappy college radio station Chloe had tuned in to started up yet another track of guitar feedback and distorted vocals.

'Yep.'

She folded her arms and turned to look out the window, watching the pine trees sliding past the windows in a steady progression. They sat like that for a few minutes, the radio filling the gap between them, and Chloe singing along under her breath, seemingly at ease. Victoria found her mind wondering, thinking over the task at hand. The secret mission.

The real question was; why was she going to so much effort? Usually, Victoria liked to think of her relationships as simple value exchanges, you scratch my back, and, if you're really good at it, I might do something in return, but with Max…

Victoria had started to find herself going out of her way to make the other girl smile. Giving her rides out to the real Oregon wilderness to get good shots. Picking up those weird European cookies she was obsessed with on a trip home to Seattle. Putting up with the obnoxious blue haired punk in the seat next to her. Now driving forty miles out of town to the nearest garden centre just to replace a stupid pot plant. It was disgusting, but she didn't seem to be able to stop.

Whenever she found herself asking how she'd gotten attached to this girl, to this strange, awkward mess of a girl, gotten so attached that she was willing to put up with a weekend-in-the-Hamptons worth of baggage, she remembered Max's smile. Or her laugh. The way the sun, rare enough in Arcadia Bay, brought out a flush of freckles across her cheeks. The way she would take Victoria's hand and rub her thumb against her palm in slow, comforting circles. Victoria had to face it. She was whipped.

'Earth to Vic.' Chloe said, disturbing her train of thought, and Victoria realised she had completely zoned out.

'What?' She snapped, perhaps a little more aggressively than was completely necessary, but oh well.

'Geez,' Chloe shot her a look across the trucks cab before focusing back on the road. 'Can you get some directions up on your phone? I don't know the woods round here so well.'

'Oh,' Victoria said, 'sure.' She pulled out her phone, the screen illuminating the small space, and jabbed at it for a few moments. 'You'll want to take a right in a few miles.'

'Thanks.' Another, even angrier song started blasting through the truck's speakers, and Chloe mercifully turned it down to a furious whisper. She shot another, longer glance at Victoria. 'You doing okay?'

'What?' Victoria's hand flew to the back of her neck awkwardly, and she broke eye contact. 'Yes. Just a little tired, I guess. I didn't need to drive miles into the wilderness to find the only place that will sell me a tiny tree in the middle of the night.'

'I think Lisa's, like, a bush?'

'Whatever.' Victoria, slid her phone back into her purse, then drummed her fingers a few times against the cardboard packet inside. 'Can I smoke in here?' She asked, her willpower crumbling.

'If you're sharing.'

Victoria didn't respond, but placed a cigarette in Chloe's outstretched hand with little resentment. She lit her own, focusing on the blue cloud she breathed into the dark air.

'A little help?' Chloe asked, a smile in her voice, and Victoria clicked her lighter back on. She had to lean over the centre console to reach the other girls mouth, the end flaring into life with an amber glow. For a moment their arms were pressed together, and then Victoria pulled away.

'Thanks,' Chloe said, inhaling. 'You would smoke American Spirits, hipster.'

'Please.'

'You know,' Chloe said, tapping a little ash into the empty coffee cup lodged between their seats, 'I could have gone without you, if you're so tired.'

'And let you take all the credit?'

'I thought we were going to keep this secret to our death beds.'

'Hmm,' Victoria took another deep drag, finishing the cigarette and flipping the butt into the improvised ash tray. 'Another one?'

Chloe followed with her stub, 'Max thinks you quit too, huh?'

'I have quit.' Victoria could feel the other girl's sceptical stare, 'mostly. Except in times of stress.'

'Does plant death count as stress?'

'I meant having to take an eighty mile round trip with you.'

…

The huge glass windows spilled light onto the asphalt as Chloe pulled her truck to a stop in the almost deserted parking lot.

'Okay,' Victoria said, 'we're going to do this quick and clean.' The walked towards the sliding doors, which slid open, greeting them with a blast of warm air and canned music.

'Where do you think they keep house plants?' She asked, scanning the cluttered shop floor for any signs of life. 'Chloe?'

The other girl was unusually quiet, and when Victoria turned to look behind her the distinctive blue hair was nowhere in sight. 'Chloe?' she asked again, irritation colouring her tone.

'Ninja strike!' Chloe yelled, popping her head up two aisles over and firing a nerf gun at Victoria's head and catching her just below her left eye.

'You are ridiculous.'

'A ridiculous ninja maybe.'

'I'm not doing this with you right now.' Victoria turned to find one of the employees that this store surely, surely must have. Another foam dart hit her in the back of the head. She spun around again, fixing Chloe with the kind of glare she usually used to control her underlings. 'Seriously, are you six years old?'

'Lighten up a little Vic,' Chloe said, laughing and dumping the oversized plastic weapon on a seemingly random shelf. 'It's an adventure.'

Victoria looked around in bemusement, 'we're shopping.'

'We're shopping at night. That makes it an adventure.'

'This conversation is over,' Victoria chose an aisle at random and strode forward, the click of her heels on the slightly sticky parquet flooring echoing in the deserted space.

Chloe loped after her, clearly a little annoyed that Victoria wasn't playing along with her bullshit. They were here for a chore, and because both of them had fucked up. They were here to help Max. They shouldn't be having fun.

After finding more than a few dead ends and displays of terrifying lawn ornaments, Chloe took more convincing that Max really didn't need a five foot tall garden gnome, they stumbled upon a greenhouse full of plants.

'Okay,' Chloe said, looking around and bouncing on her heels, 'so, what kind of plant is Lisa?'

Victoria fixed her with a look of absolute panic, 'you don't know?'

'What? No! Why would I know about kinds of plants?'

'Why would I?'

'I don't know, what do they teach at that school of yours?'

'Not plant identification. Shit. Shit shit shit. Max is going to be so disappointed. '

'It's cool,' Chloe said, placing her hands on Victoria's shoulders. 'We got this. Use that big nerd brain of yours, what did she look like?'

'Max?'

'Lisa.'

'It looked like a plant.'

'She was green, okay, and leafy.'

'She,' Victoria said, giving into the ridiculousness, 'she had those shiny leaves? The glossy kind?'

'Right! Good! She was, maybe, three foot high?'

'Yes, okay,' Victoria felt a little more in control of the situation. 'We should split up.'

'And?' Chloe asked, leaning forward.

'What? Wait, you're not serious, are you?'

'I'm not leaving till you say it?' Victoria tried to stare her down, but Chloe seemed determined to stand her ground, and eventually she chose the path of least resistance.

'Fine,' she said, exasperated, 'let's split up and look for clues.'

…

They'd fought over which plant was better, of course. Right in front of the single, spaced out and exhausted cashier, they'd debated the various merits of Lisa II (Chloe's choice) versus a fucking plant (Victoria's choice). Chloe had won, eventually, and Victoria had been a little bitter about conceding defeat. Perhaps more than a little.

Still, as she looked in the rear view mirror she couldn't help but feel a small glow of satisfaction. There, strapped into the back seat like a petulant toddler, was a plant that looked pretty much like the one that they had killed between them. Hopefully, Max would never know the difference.

She looked out the car window, watching the little bubble of light made by the truck's headlights float through the dark forest like a ship at sea.

'Thanks.' Chloe said, her eyes fixed on the point the trucks headlights vanished into darkness, 'for paying for the plant.'

'It's nothing.'

'And…' Chloe swallowed, 'and for coming with me like this. That was cool. I know sometimes it's a little weird, between us, but I really like Max, and for some reason she likes you, so…' she threw a glance in her direction, 'thanks.'

'It's nothing,' Victoria said again, not meaning it.

'So,' Chloe twisted in her seat to check on the plant, 'what do you want to name it?'

'Really? It's a plant. I thought it was Lisa II anyway.'

'Just making conversation, grumpy gills.'

Victoria drummed one hand on the dash board, thoughtfully. 'I like David?'

'Eww, no. Nope. Definitely not.'

'What's wrong with David?'

'No child of mine is going to have that name.'

'Chloe, it's a plant. You do know that, right? It's not your child.'

'He is my beautiful son.'

'Well then you should name it.'

'Rupert.'

'Do you want the other plants to pick on it?'

'Well look whose suddenly decided to be a part of our child's life.'

'Since when was it our child?'

'It's mine and Max's. You can be a cool Aunt or something.'

'Shit, he's going to have issues.' Victoria said, smiling despite herself. 'All the more reason not to call him Rupert.'

'Fine. How about… Lief?'

'You're terrible.'

'Do you have a better suggestion?'

'You know,' Victoria said, turning to look at it, at him, 'he kind of looks like a Lief.'

…

**Max Caulfield**

Hey!

Back from Seattle :)

Missed you guys like crazy

 **Victoria Chase**   
welcome home xxx

 **Chloe Price**   
EMOJIS!

 **Victoria Chase**   
:p

 **Chloe Price**   
Ur on thin ice here

 **Victoria Chase**   
:'( ← real tears

 **Chloe Price**   
MAAAX make her stopp

 **Max Caulfield**   
So when I said I missed you…

this wasn't the part I missed

come to my dorm room I want a real welcome home

 

…

'I mean, I guess I'm a little offended you thought I wouldn't notice.' Max said, looking at the plant pot critically.

'I mean, we got some things right, right?' Chloe asked.

'It's a plant, at least,' Victoria added.

'Yeah…' Max admitted, 'but it's not a Ficus, it's the wrong size and shape, it's in a different pot and you left the price tag from the store on it. Apart from that you did great.'

'It was my fault,' Chloe said, 'I didn't water it on my days, I'm so sorry Max.'

'Yeah, it was Chloe's fault,' said Victoria, and, when Chloe shot her a dirty look, 'what? I'm supporting you.'

'You're not too mad, are you?' Chloe asked, grabbing Max by the hand anxiously, 'we're really sorry.'

'I'm not mad,' Max said, reassuringly, 'honestly I've almost killed Lisa myself a bunch of times. Plus, it's sweet that you tried to get me a replacement.' She looked at both of them for a moment, 'it's cool that you did something together at once.'

Victoria smiled at Max, as Chloe went one further and picked her up in a bear hug that lifted Max clean off the ground. When Chloe had deposited her safely on the ground, Max took her hand again, giving it a tight squeeze. 'Promise you're not mad?' Chloe asked.

'I promise,' Max said, and kissed her lightly, 'you're too cute to stay mad at for long anyway.'

Victoria gave a slightly irritated cough, and Max turned to her with a smile, 'and you're way too scary to be mad at.'

'I'll take it,' Victoria responded, stepping forward to claim her kiss. The peck on the lips was a little chaste, but the night was young and didn't look to be full of any of the pot plant fueled arguments that she had been mentally prepared for. 'I'm glad you're back.'

'Me too,' Max replied, 'just promise me one thing, you two, okay?'

'What?' Victoria asked, reservedly, as Chloe nodded.

'If Kate asks you to look after her rabbit, don't say yes.'

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> I almost tagged this as major character death, for Lisa.
> 
> Everything I write becomes Victoria-centric, it's a blessing and a curse. 
> 
> This is dedicated to thestarryskiesofpalaven who requested 'Can't go wrong with mushy Chasepricefield OT3', which I promise this started out as. 
> 
> I'm working through fic requests write now, so if you have one leave it here or on my tumblr (wrappedupinabook.tumblr.com) ... just don;t ask me to write about Max kissing boys. 
> 
> As ever, commentors receive blessings from the fic fairies :)


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